Review
The iPod is dead. The sales figures say so. The absence of updates to the range says so. The lack of concern about the absence of updates to the range says so. There are neither ‘Shock – new iPod!’ stories, nor are there “shock – no new iPod!” stories. It’s inert. It has ceased to be. The only thing it’s shuffling is off this …

Review
For many people, digital photography is a no-brainer. You can shoot as much as you like, there's no need to worry about running out of film, and you don't need to carry a notebook with you to record all the details of every shot. At the very least, your digital camera will record exposure details such as shutter speed and …

Review
Cycling an unknown route can be tricky. Either you have to keep stopping to check the map app in your pocket or, if you have your smartphone strapped to your handlebars, you have to take your eyes off the road in order to peer the screen. You also have to decide whether to leave it on for the whole journey, running the battery …

Review
When I reviewed the mid-range Samsung Galaxy A5, I reckoned that Samsung didn't have much to fear from Chinese OEMs who will sell you more phone for less money.
Xiaomi Mi4 LTE Android smartphone
Xiaomi Mi4
Are the masses really going to be bothered to track down one of these ever so slightly grey Chinese imports, pay …

Review
Kingston’s latest SATA-based addition to its HyperX range of SSDs is the Savage, an SSD which boasts some pretty impressive performance and endurance figures.
Kingston HyperX Savage 240GB SSD
The beast within: Kingston's HyperX Savage
According to the official sequential figures for the drive, it is the company’s fastest …

Review
Over the last few years, the market for e-readers and books has managed to both consolidate and grow. Many more people have an e-reading device, or use tablets to read, while at the same time the number of players has shrunk.
Kobo Glo HD and Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Bought to book: Kobo Glo HD (left) and Amazon Kindle …

Review
Music gear manufacturer IK Multimedia will be 20 years old next year. It’s known to many these days for its iOS gadgets, but the Italian company began with software development focused on digital signal processing, producing standalone sound-creation apps and plug-in effects. One of its earliest creations, T-Racks, was dynamics …

Review
Huawei’s P8 has finally rolled into UK shops, the latest wave of China’s assault on Tier One Android flagships.
Huawei P8 Huawei's P8: set to give South Korean phone makers sleepless nights
If you don’t know the Huawei proposition, here it is. You won’t get all the bells and whistles from a phone that arrives on a £40-£50 …

Review
Intel’s teeny-weeny NUC or Next Unit of Computing device was first launched back in 2012 and has been tweaked and updated at regular intervals ever since. Just recently, the latest version of the NUC landed in my lap – or to be more precise, landed in the palm of my hand.
Intel NUC5i5RYK Intel's next Next Unit of Computing …

So in order to test out the Ecobee3 - as its names suggests, the third iteration of the product - it was necessary to pull the Nest smart thermostat off the wall and put it away.
That this act seemed somehow wrong and even came with a twinge of guilt is an indication of just how entrancing the product that has become the face of …

Review
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick may well be late to the streaming HDMI dongle party but, as is the company’s wont, it’s even later when it comes to turning up in European markets. Still, it’s here now and keenly priced too at just £35. OK, so Google’s Chromecast is only £30 but at least Amazon supplies a remote control.
Amazon Fire TV …

Review
These days, it seems like the world and his civil partner has a tablet to offer you, whether it's a bargain basement offering like the Tesco Hudl 2 or something more media-centric, like the Amazon Fire HDX 8.
One of the sweet spots for tablet pricing seems to be around the £300–350 range, where you'll expect to get a decent- …

Review
Of the Chromebook ilk, Toshiba’s original CB30 was one of my favourites from 2014. Slim, light and stylish and, of course, affordable. This year, you’d think that all the company would need to do is refresh a few components and it could keep on going with this design.
Yet with the arrival of Toshiba’s Chromebook 2 that also …

Review
Despite some lovely work, LG has been a perennial bridesmaid at the smartphone wedding. LG’s rival giant Samsung has walked off with the only profits being made in the Android business. But this year LG senses a chance to be the bride.
LG G4 Android smartphone LG's G4 flagship smartie
For 2015, Samsung has made its best phone …

Review
The last time Apple released a ‘more affordable’ iMac it turned out to be a damp squib of a thing that fully merited the oft-hurled criticism about Apple kit being over-priced and under-powered. I was, therefore, a bit worried when Apple announced a less expensive version of the 27-inch iMac With Retina 5K Display.
Apple iMac …

Review
When is an update not an update? The MacBook Pro has been something of the poor relation in the Apple family in the last few years. The recent Intel Broadwell chip family update given to the 13-inch MacBook Pro offered a small boost to battery life, but did little for performance.
Apple MacBook Pro 15-in WRD mid-2015 Intel …

Review
Convergence. Wretched word. But one particularly liked by hardware wallahs trying to convince us that instead of buying a laptop and a tablet, we should buy something that is a laptop and a tablet. Asus is king of the convergers.
Asus Chi T300 Transformer Book Doing the splits: Asus Transformer Book T300 Chi
To be fair, Asus …

Review
There’s a commuter who gets off the train where I live who has a tablet down his trousers. Call it the middle-class version of builder’s crack or the male equivalent of the inappropriate G-string, it peeks out over the top of his chinos.
Microsoft Surface 3 Windows 8.1 tablet Intel inside: Microsoft's Surface 3 Windows 8.1 …

Review
Ok, so let's get this out the way quickly: this updated Roku 3 is the best streaming player on the market right now.
And it will most likely remain the best on the market until the Roku 4 arrives toward the end of the year. And yes, that includes the Apple TV fourth generation that everyone expects to be this 2015's pant-wetting …

Review
It’s not often you get an SSD manufacturer launching two new families of drives at the same time, but Crucial is back from kicking the sand into the faces of its competitors with its aggressive pricing policy of the MX100 series. This time it's flexing its muscles with the BX100 and MX200 ranges.
Crucial BX100 SSD Budget 1TB …

Review
The most important Samsung phone of the last 12 months was the Galaxy S6, right? Nah. It was the Galaxy Alpha. The Alpha heralded a momentous change in Samsung design, from tired and mundane to rather stylish, and in material quality, from cheap plastic to high quality metal.
Samsung Galaxy A5 Samsung Galaxy A5
In one leap it …

Review
If you have ever missed a FedEx delivery and had to drive over to the depot, if you have had someone break into your house, or if you are often a long way from your front door when someone knocks, then you should really consider the Ring doorbell.
For $200, it packs a lot in: an HD camera, a high-quality intercom, a motion …

Vulture in the Saddle
Eighteen miles an hour:It’s the difference between loving the Smart E-bike and hating it. This is because the bike is electrically assisted up to 15 mph – the legal limit for assistance in Europe – and beyond that pedalling the very heavy machine becomes exceptionally hard work.
Below that speed it’s wonderful. The 200 watt …

Review
One of my surprising reviews last year was Nokia’s huge, budget phablet, the Lumia 1320. It's fairly similar to the most recent Lumia 640 XL.
Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Microsoft's Lumia 640 XL: available in 3G and 4G versions
The previous Lumia 1320 was hard to find in the retail catalogues and even Nokia didn’t seem to care for …

VULTURE AT THE WHEEL
The VW Passat 2/0 is a car you buy with your head.
All cars are a combination of a head and heart purchase. Some, like an Atom or Elise swing wildly towards the heart. Some like the Skoda Citigo are bought on numbers and practicality. All manufacturers try to inject some aspect of both into their cars. Even if it’s just lowering …

Review
As Geddy Lee of Rush once sang – “plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose”. When Apple unveiled the MacBook Air back in 2008 we all scoffed and said that Steve Jobs’ slimline progeny was over-priced and underpowered. “It doesn’t even have an Ethernet port”, came the mocking cry (followed by the entire PC industry doing exactly …

Vulture at the wheel
It’s all about the headrests.
Forget the 4.4 litre V8, the defining feature of the Range Rover Sport is the driver's headrest. It’s an analogue for the rest of the car: supremely comfortable and cosseting.
It’s a bit fraudulent to review the “best four by four by far” without taking it on as much as a dirt road, let alone a …

Review
The Leap is the first full-touch device BlackBerry has released in 18 months, and only the third to be released in developed markets. It’s also the cheapest, with the BlackBerry UK store listing it at £199 including VAT.
BlackBerry Leap Fleeting gesture: BlackBerry Leap
So at first glance, the Leap promises to be a 2015 …

Review
No, this isn’t the first Apple Watch review you’ve seen. Cupertino supplied review units to a few selected journalists at the start of April; the rest of us had to order our own. I almost ignored mine arriving because I was looking out for a watch. It came in a box more suitable for a truncheon.
Apple Watch Sport No, we're not …

Review
Is the Nokia Microsoft Lumia 640 an Office subscription with a free phone, or a phone with a free Office subscription? Either way, it's likely to be the biggest mobile device for Microsoft since the days of Zune and Kin – and the company is getting more aggressive with its marketing.
Microsoft Lumia 640 Windows Phone Office …

Review
Back in December 2013, I hailed the first generation Motorola Moto G as the best affordable smartphone on the market. If you want a reasonably compact 4.5-inch device, then, arguably, it still is the best, thanks to a midlife facelift that added a microSD slot and 4G reception.
Motorola Moto G 4G Motorola Moto G 4G
A larger, …

Review
I’ve found life is so much easier if one sticks to three simple rules. Never drive a Volvo car, never buy a Samsung phone, and always grind your own coffee. However, I might have to rethink one of those – and it isn’t the coffee.
Samsung Galaxy S6 Samsung's Galaxy S6 flagship handset
Samsung can’t do anything without a …

Vulture at the Wheel
As befits the company most closely associated with the technology, Toyota/Lexus now has a hybrid for you, no matter what size car you're after.
From the medium-sized Auris and Prius to the big hybrid saloons and wagons like the NX300h, it has most of the automotive bases covered.
With the Yaris Hybrid just subjected to a mid- …

Review
Like or loathe Chromebooks, the marque offers security and convenience at an affordable price. And for the most part they are lightweight with a touch of style. Up until now Chromebooks had a monopoly on that combination but HP has cooked up some competition with its Stream Cloud range of budget Windows machines.
HP Stream x360 …

Review
When Eyefi launched its first wireless-enabled SD cards nearly 10 years ago, they had the promise to free photographers from the grind of having to repeatedly take the card out of their camera and insert it into their computer to transfer images. Eyefi meant that, for the first time, images captured could be instantly sent to …

Review
Well, it looks as though the writing is on the wall for the MacBook Air. It’s still one of the slimmest and lightest laptops around, with impressive 10-12 hour battery life. But that 1440x900 resolution is dead in the water these days – especially at Apple price levels – while the chunky metal bezel around the screen is the tech …

Review
In a world of generic smartphones where even Apple and Samsung seem to be converging on the same design, HTC has designed phones that are pretty distinctive – the HTC One is one of the very few brands you can recognise from across a room.
HTC One M9 Android smartphone Standing out from the crowd, HTC's One M9
HTC has also …

Review
Last year’s update to the MacBook Pro was more notable for its £100 price cut than the modest speed bump that accompanied it. However, this year’s model is a more interesting kettle of fish, as it introduces Intel’s latest Broadwell processors to the Mac range, along with Apple’s new Force Touch trackpad doohickey.
Apple …

Review
My original idea was to review the Raspberry Pi Compute Module. But the thing about the Compute Module is that it’s not an end-user product: it was designed for manufacturers looking for an ARM-based platform on which they can build devices they can sell.
FiveNinjas Slice Media Player FiveNinjas Slice Media Player
Unlike the …

Vulture at the Wheel
Oh, for the days when it was obvious what category a car sat in. You see, I don’t rightly know which pigeonhole to try to shove the latest Lexus NX300h into. The closest thing in spirit is probably Nissan’s Juke, another style wagon that is part SUV, part four door coupé.
Lexus NX300h hybrid SUV The Lexus NX300h – looks like a …

Review
Time was when chip-makers’ processor evaluation boards were well beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. That didn't matter, of course: ordinary mortals weren't interested in small, nude motherboards designed to help designers of embedded systems judge a microprocessor's suitability for the application they were working on.
MIPS …

Review
Edge. Get used to the word. From here on in, if the scuttlebut is to be believed, several flagship Samsung devices will be available with an Edge variant. An Edgy version of the Galaxy S6 has already been confirmed. A what? In simple terms with a bit of extra screen that curves around the right hand edge of the device. …